The War in Europe

Trump is itching to become a Western Leader again. I see echos of civil war here, skyhigh inflation, and a bunch of ignorant populists poised to vote for him.And you guys dont think I am sane when I see either a secular armageddon or a sacred armageddon. Only God can help us. (or a charismatic global leader who can charm secular humanists the way that Trump charms Populists) which would be the anti-christ.I think that Biden is doing a decent job to keep us out of this war so far, but I fear that Putin wont stop. Which will lead to skyhigh prices. Which will lead to God knows what.

Nothing. I say now, though, that our first priority is to keep Trump out of it. Even if Americans do suffer. I really worry about World War III the more that I read. Unless Putin is right and his own "5th column" takes him out. Isn't it odd how Tzar Vladimir the Condemned sees the obvious and warns Russians to repel it?(see video below) Let's hope that Russia is as ready for democracy as Ukraine was. If the 5th column wins, we may actually get rid of Russias Nukes and a few of our own. Edited by Phat, : numerous punctuation errors. I need my coffee

Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

This doesn't clarify anything. What the hell is a secular armageddon? What the hell is a sacred armageddon? Yeah, that's the worst part of global war, the high prices.And STOP POSTING THOSE STUPID VIDEOS!

What we must understand, however, is that NATO sanctions are only now ramping up against Russian Energy. Inflation is changing US Gas Prices. And the Fed has no tool that will work against it.

I doubt that. He likes the attention but he doesn't like people constantly wanting him to do things. Well, you never tell us why these things might happen - i.e. you have no rationale for your fears. Try to think rationally. But that has never been His plan. Noah had to build his own ark. I think he's itching to find a way out of the mess he's created. He can't show weakness because the other gangsters will stomp him but he can't "win" this war either, not in any real sense.My guess is that he'll pull the same trick as Trump and say, "Well, I accomplished what I wanted to do," (built a wall, made America great again, stopped the Nazis in Ukraine) and try to quietly fade away.(I'm waiting to see what monster raving looney our Canadian Conservative party chooses for its leader-of-the month. So far, it looks like a "race" between a Trump wannabe, a has-been and at least one never-was.)

Bullshit Phat.Learn the basics.The US gets less than 8% of it's oil from Russia and the US exports many times more oil than that every year.Inflation is NOT changing the US gas prices, only greed and the utter stupidity of people like you is changing the gas prices.And the Fed has many tools to deal with inflation which for the foreseeable future is only an issue for the utter stupid of people like you.Were you alive in the 1980s Phat?What was the Armageddon when we were seeing inflation rates over 10% a year?Stop watching stupid videos produced only to con stupid people.Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

Edited by jar, : cut has

Of course, Phat's statement begs the question of whether Trump has ever deserved being considered a leader, especially since he was doing the bidding of his master, Putin. The general staff of the German Army said of their Kaiser Wilhelm II, arguably an eerily prescient pre-saging of Trump, that he couldn’t lead three soldiers over a gutter, but even there Kaiser Bill's leadership skills far outshone Trump's.But besides Trump's pathological need for constant attention and ego fluffing, Trump's "running" for the Presidency is motivated by two very important factors: So Trump's motivation to be President again is not to serve, since that would make him a sucker. Rather, he has three basic motivations:

1. His need to have his ego constantly fluffed. Balance that with his aversion to being exposed as a loser.
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2. His need to escape prosecution for his lifetime filled with so very many crimes.
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3. His greed for all the money that he can grift out of suckers.

 
So will Trump actually run for President again? Only if he is absolutely assured of winning, since his fragile ego could not survive losing yet again.Rather, I predict that he will lead his followers along as long as he possibly can, misleading them into believing that he is going to run until the last possible moment. We've seen him do that kind of thing before. And as long as his followers think that he will run, they will continue to send him money, so he will milk them, that cash cow, for all the money he possibly can.Just the other day I saw an article where some group is suing Trump for not announcing his candidacy but rather leading his followers on.

You are the one who is ignorant this time, jar. Name the tools they have left. I was born in 1959. I remember Jimmy Carter. I remember Ford and his WIN buttons. I also remember Fed Chairman Paul Volker and how it was only through raising interest rates to 20% that inflation was stopped. Try raising interest rates to even 5% now and watch what happens. They measure inflation differently now. If the inflation we have now were measured the way it was measured then, our current inflation would approach 18-20%. As for Armageddon, 1980 was neither the time nor place in History for it. I have no idea when it will occur, but we are a lot closer now than we ever were then.Have you watched the PBS FRONTLINE series about Tsar Vlad The Condemned? They laughed at Hitle too until he nearly wiped us all out. And now we again have the nuclear problem. And a meglomaniac dictator with the ability to use it.One of the ways Putin wants to wipe us out is to make us suffer. Our land will fight itself with civil war from within. Hopefully, we can prove him wrong.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Inflation is not simply price increases.We live in a global world whether people care to recognize it or not. Everything affects everything else as far as price calculations (yes, the grand ol’ supply/demand curve writ large - with some post-Keynesian wrinkles). Increases/decreases in specific commodity prices mean nothing. Increases in the price of gas mean nothing, in rent prices, nothing, in the price of wheat mean nothing. Increases in the prices of all three, and everything else on the market (give or take), now we’re talking inflation.Inflation is the upward pressure on prices broadly across the economy. The workings of the calculations are quite complex. The bean counters need to go through a bread basket of commodities giving weight to each one. For instance, increases in rent across a region is empirically known to have more impact on the flow of economic activity than the rise in the price of sugar. These types of decisions are made (argued over, academically, with studies galore as data) for dozens of items across a region then aggregated with other regions to achieve a national view.Of course, over the decades the weights and measures will change. But not by no 20% crap. The object is to find out what’s happening in this overly chaotic economic system to the best of our ability. The expert consensus, unclouded as much as possible by the special pleading of politics, will allow us better use of our tools (monetary and fiscal) to try to nudge the economy into, what the eggheads perceive as, a more stabilized position. Capitalism at work.This isn’t done in a vacuum. Every move the fed makes is analyzed, ripped apart and analyzed again. But we HAVE to trust SOMEBODY competent, as politically isolated as reasonable in a democracy, to decide which monetary levers to pull in which direction when. In the USofA, we chose the Federal Reserve. Specifically, the 12 member Federal Open Market Committee. Of course there has been and always will be controversy, but I don’t recall any instance when the reaction of the macroeconomic discipline had devolved into concentrated opposition at any fed action, ever.If you’re a capitalist then you can be assured that, under such scrutiny from the Universities, banks and the myriad of competing interests, in general, the fed will probably get it right as far as theory is concerned. But these are deeply chaotic systems and sometimes reality rebels against theory. We’ll see.Enough civics lesson.Everyone is already aware what is happening in this world. From an uptick in demand as this society tries to shrug off covid and some related big social/political bumps, to war and further constrictions of the supply, inflation is an inevitable result. The result is a great big dose of actual bona fide inflation in every region of the nation and beyond. If you watch any of the finance/business shows you know they have been talking about this for months.And the solutions have been known for months. The debate has been over when and how much. Now the fed is acting. Raising interest rates, selling bonds at lower rates (which, paradoxically, raises the yield of the bond in the market place … it’s complicated).The only solution to inflation is to constrict the money supply.Let me say that again for emphasis.The only way to tame inflation in our modern post-Keynesian economic theories is to constrict the money supply available in the system. There are different ways to do that, decrease bond prices, increase interest rates.The fed just took its first step. It will take more baby steps over this next year (some say 4 or 5 more increases). Fed funds rate is a merger 0.50% not the 21% like in the 80’s. We are at WSJ Prime rate of 3.25%. Not even close to the 25%+ of the 1980’s. We got a long way to go.If it takes a fed rate of 20%, 30%, selling off a big chunk of our bonds to tame the money supply then modern economic theory says that is a long term good. Capitalism.The fed has just starting using its hammer. Go small hits, getting bigger, slowly, until the money supply comes back into balance.But monetary policy is a moderate-to-fine tune mechanism for an economy. The overriding stage has the most major impact. Stabilizing the political situation and avoiding a nuclear war would be the biggest help in taming your concerns about inflation. As I recall we survived the 80's. You may find out. More war, market disruption, another strain of covid. The future has many wonders to behold.Yes, I do now recall quite distinctly. We did survive the 80's.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Just an observation on my part.I note that the quick blitzkrieg into the Ukrainian people's hearts and souls having failed Tzar Vladimir the Condemned has now settled on a strategy of torture of the civilian population. Another Holodomor may be coming.You go Vlad!Straight to hell.

Again, learn the basics Phat.The issue is not Putin but the fact that a vast number of US citizens, just like you, have decided to be willfully ignorant.You continue to elect people that are financed by big business and so work directly for the rich and powerful.Almost half of the US voted to make the government fascist. Many still see that as desirable.It ain't Putin, the enemy is YOU.

Not only did we survive the 80's, we survived the 60's and 70's that were far more violent, destructive and divisive.AbE: The most immediate threat that the US of A faces right now is the Christian Cult of Ignorance and Deceit.Edited by jar, : see AbE

I don't feel as if the US government has decided whether it wants to save the Ukraine or just punish Putin. If the former or both, we're failing. If just the latter, we're succeeding but not in a way that will accomplish the former.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

How could we save the Ukraine? Whether to punish Tzar Vladimir the Condemned or not, what could we possibly do to save Ukraine? What does that mean? What would it look like?

Those are good questions, but it feels to me that if we were trying to save Ukraine then we'd be doing more, like send fighter jets or put our own armed forces in harm's way. It's been argued that we're already trying to save Ukraine through sanctions against Russia and smaller armaments to Ukraine, but I don't believe those are sufficient myself.I believe Ukraine will fall in another month or two if current aid levels remain the same, but there are many who believe Putin has bitten off more than he can chew. I hope they're right.--Percy